Geoff Boycott under fire for comments on Michael Yardy's depression

Mental health charity praises England all-rounder for admitting illness and criticises Boycott for connecting it to his performance

Geoffrey Boycott: the former England opener has been critical of Michael Yardy over his cricket World Cup exit. Photograph: Anthony Upton/Rex Features Anthony Upton / Rex Features/Anthony Upton / Rex Features

The England cricketer Michael Yardy has left the World Cup squad 48 hours before their quarter final against Sri Lanka in Colombo on Saturday because he is suffering from depression.

Yardy, a spin-bowling all-rounder with Sussex, received praise and sympathy from the England players and management, and also from the mental health charity Sane. But the reaction to his decision to go home, by former England opener Geoffrey Boycott, underlined the continued difficulty of people acknowledging mental illness in sport.

"I'm surprised, very surprised," Boycott told the BBC, having previously been highly critical of Yardy's performances in the tournament. "But he must have been reading my comments about his bowling – it must have upset him.

"Obviously it was too much for him at this level. If any blame is attached it's partly to the selectors because I'm sorry, he's not good enough at this level."

Boycott expressed sympathy for Yardy, who has returned home to his wife and two young children in Brighton after spending all but four days of the last four months playing in New Zealand, Australia, Bangladesh and India. "It's obviously very sad," said Boycott. "But I'm not a medical man, so I can't tell you what it's like to be depressed. I've been lucky, I've been good enough … until you've had depression, I don't think you're qualified to talk about it."

However Marjorie Wallace, Sane's chief executive, argued that the damage had already been done to a vulnerable sportsman. "We are concerned about any suggestion that depression is not a potentially serious and disabling condition," she said. "It is wrong and old-fashioned to regard it as a form of weakness, or a disguise for a lack of achievement.

"It takes courage to speak out as Michael Yardy has done: not only can it help the person struggling with depression but encourage others to seek help."

Yardy's departure for psychological reasons is rare but not unprecedented: the Somerset opener Marcus Trescothick returned home from a tour of India five years ago when he was England vice-captain, and has subsequently retired from international cricket.

Yardy said: "Leaving at this stage of a World Cup was a very difficult decision to make but I felt that it was the only sensible option for me and I wanted to be honest about the reason behind that decision. I would like to wish the squad all the very best ahead of the game on Saturday. I would appreciate some privacy over the coming weeks while I spend time with family and close friends before what I hope will be a successful season for Sussex."

Yardy, 30, who has made 42 limited-overs appearances for England and was a key figure in the team which became world Twenty20 champions in the Caribbean last year, had been omitted from the last two fixtures against Bangladesh and West Indies, but was expected to return against Sri Lanka.

He becomes the latest in a long line of players who have been unable to last the course of a gruelling and uneven winter for the team. They flew to Australia in October and retained the Ashes in Sydney in early January, then had only a three-day break at home between a seven-match one-day series in Australia and the start of their preparations for the World Cup in Bangladesh and India.

Yardy is the fourth member of the 15-man World Cup squad to have flown home early, following Kevin Pietersen, Stuart Broad and his replacement, Ajmal Shahzad, who were all injured. The International Cricket Council has approved the replacement of Yardy by Yorkshire leg-spinner Adil Rashid.

The England and Wales Cricket Board announced Yardy's departure in a statement which referred to "an illness he has been managing for a prolonged period of time". Hugh Morris, the board's managing director, said: "I would like to offer my full support to Michael on behalf of everyone involved with England and the ECB.

"Michael has been an integral part of the England set up in recent years and, while he will be missed in the knock-out stages of the World Cup, our priority now is to ensure that he returns home to his family and is able to spend time recovering with a strong support network around him."